Dr. Saturday's College Football Madness: The play-in games, session one

Dr. Saturday's College Football Madness: The play-in games, session one

Welcome to Dr. Saturday's College Football Madness. Ever wondered how the 2013 college football season could have turned out with a 68-team playoff? You've come to the right spot. While 68 teams participate in the NCAA tournament, we're running an expanded college football playoff. And you're in charge. Each matchup is open to a vote and the team with the most votes in each game moves on to the next round. First up, the play-in games.

We're going to give some love to the FCS in our play in games. With our expanded field of 68 in college football madness, we could have added some more mediocre FBS teams or given the final eight spots to the top FCS teams from 2013.

It was an easy decision.

Our four play-in games are for the four No. 16 seeds. The winner of each game will take on a No. 1 seed in the first round of our College Football Madness Tournament. (Unlike the NCAA tournament, these games are not classified as the first round. We'll unveil the bracket later.)

Here are our first two play-in games. The winner of the first matchup will take on our No. 4 overall No. 1 seed while the winner of the second game will play our top overall seed. The bracket will be unveiled at a later date, but you can probably guess who our top seed is going to be.

Do any of these teams have a chance against college football's behemoths? Who knows. We want to play the hypothetical game. Voting for each game is open until 9 a.m. ET Thursday, March 20.

North Dakota St. vs. Montana

North Dakota St. (15-0): The Bison finished the regular season 11-0 and beat everyone in the FCS playoffs by at least 28 points. Oh, they beat Kansas State 24-21 in Manhattan, Kan. to open the season. And did you know that North Dakota State also got 17 points in the final AP poll of the season?

Sam Ojuri and John Crockett each ran for over 1,300 yards and quarterback Brock Jensen threw for over 2,700 yards and 34 touchdowns.

Montana (10-3): The Grizz lost in the quarterfinals of the FCS playoffs to Coastal Carolina 42-35. While Montana opened the season with three blowout wins, 2013 was a bit of a tightrope adventure. Two wins came in overtime by three points each and another win came by four points.

QB Jordan Johnson had 3,387 yards passing and 32 touchdowns while RB Jordan Canada, a definite member of the all-FCS name team, had 1,111 yards rushing. Unfortunately, TE Jordan Harper was not the team's leading receiver. He had just nine catches all year.

Southeastern Louisiana vs. Maine

SE Louisiana (11-3): The Lions played TCU in the second game of the season and lost 38-17. After losing to South Dakota St. the following week, SE Louisiana reeled off 10 straight wins and went undefeated in the Southland conference. However, the Lions' season ended at home with a 20-17 loss to New Hampshire in the FCS playoffs.

QB Bryan Bennett, a transfer from Oregon, did it all for SE Louisiana. He was the team's leading rusher with 1,173 rushing yards and threw for 3,165 yards with 37 total touchdowns.

Maine (10-3): The Black Bears don't want to see the state directly to the west anytime soon. After heading into the final game of the season against New Hampshire, Maine was 10-1. It lost 24-3 to UNH. Then as the FCS playoff bracket came out, Maine's first round opponent was once again New Hampshire. The rematch wasn't much better as New Hampshire won 41-27.

QB Marcus Wasilewski threw for 3,238 yards and 25 touchdowns and was the team's third-leading rusher with 532 rushing yards.